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  “I didn’t mean to make you scream,” he said. “I heard it all the way outside, and I’m really sorry. I just thought this might be a fun and interesting way to bring you a late-night snack. I guess I thought you’d recognize me immediately and think the whole thing was fun.”

  Willing my racing heartbeat to slow, I snorted. “Oh, yeah. Real fun. Getting into bed and seeing some dark shape hovering outside my window, forty-nine stories up. I’m not exactly fully used to dragons and all their different little tricks, you know.”

  Mason sighed. “I really am sorry. But, look…I’m going to make it up to you. Ever had a meatball sub delivered to you by a dragon before?” After flicking on a desk lamp nearby, he held up a white paper bag printed with the name of the sandwich shop he’d mentioned days earlier. “Don’t worry. I had them hold the banana slices. Weirdly, they told me that banana slices aren’t even a topping option for their meatball subs. Kind of strange.”

  Despite not really wanting to, and despite the fact that I felt like I shouldn’t for some reason, I was suddenly laughing. I was kind of mad at myself for doing it, but I still couldn’t stop, at least not for a little while. I was actually starting to hate Mason’s humor, but just because I obviously really liked it at the same time. It was just that things would have been a lot easier if I hadn’t found him so funny. That way, I might have found it much easier to keep my guard up around him.

  Seemingly encouraged by my laughter, he handed me the restaurant bag, grinning. “Here. I hope you enjoy this, even though it’s just a boring, standard meatball sub, no banana slices.”

  I ate the very delicious sub in bed while Mason entertained me further with various jokes and funny stories. It was only after I’d brushed my teeth and returned to bed, finding him shirtless, that things began to get a bit more serious.

  Without knowing what, exactly, was going on between him and Alex, I wasn’t exactly eager to climb in bed beside him, knowing what it might lead to now that I was finished eating. However, I really didn't feel like I had much of a choice at the moment, so I did. I felt like to do otherwise might arouse Mason’s suspicions that I was suspicious of him.

  I’d just slid into bed beside him when he pulled me into his arms, seeming to be inhaling the scent of my hair. “You know, Kira…I think we could really make a great team together. Just the two of us. I like the way your hair always smells like strawberries, I like you in bed, and I like how you laugh at my jokes. You’re absolutely gorgeous when you smile, you know.”

  I didn’t exactly know what to say, so I just simply said thank you.

  Mason gave me a sexy half-grin, pulling me even closer still. “Don’t just say thank you. Thank me with a kiss. After all, I did have to do some intricate maneuvering to break free from Alex and the rest of the patrol team this evening, just so I could come here and spend a little alone time with you.”

  As if he’d only been waiting to hear his name, Alex himself strode through my bedroom doorway right then. “Well, well. I thought I might find you here, Mason. When I noticed you missing, I wasn’t sure if you’d told me where you were going and I just hadn’t heard you or what; so, I figured I’d better try to find you just in case you’d told me to follow you.”

  With his face completely devoid of expression, Mason just looked at Alex for a long moment. “Well…I did. I said for you to meet me back here at Kira’s, but you must not have heard me. I’m not just trying to be selfish with Kira, you know. We agreed that neither of us would monopolize her time, and I intend to honor my word. The two of us were doing a little talking here, sure, but I intended to wait until you got here to start other activities.”

  Alex glanced up from untying his boots. “Oh, I know that. And I don’t begrudge you a little one-on-one talking with Kira. In fact, I’ve been thinking that you and I have probably been working a little too hard lately, and we should both take some time out to just enjoy some downtime and talking with her. And since you got tonight, I’ll go ahead and take tomorrow. So, you take the lead of tomorrow’s evening patrol, and I’ll come back here for a while, and then you can join us later on. Deal?”

  Still pretty expressionless, but with his nostrils flaring just slightly, Mason shrugged. “I don’t care. I guess that sounds fine to me.”

  “Great.”

  Alex was now undressed down to his boxer-briefs, and he climbed into bed on my other side. Mason flicked off the bedside lamp, and soon, in the pale moonlight, I was being held, caressed, and kissed passionately by I wasn’t even sure who after a while. I just felt two different sets of hands intimately exploring my body, and two sets of lips brushing against my bare skin, all of this stimulation quickly bringing me to a point where I was outright panting with desire.

  By the scent of his skin, I could tell that it was Alex who managed to penetrate me first, rolling on top of me while Mason planted a slow row of kisses down the side of my neck. Before long, he returned the kisses to my lips and began plundering my mouth with his tongue; and soon, the sensation combined with Alex’s powerful thrusting soon gave me my first mind-blowing climax of the night. My second one came a while later, while I rode Mason’s rock-hard cock with Alex looking on, eyes glinting.

  CHAPTER 19

  In the morning, Alex and Mason were both already gone.

  I spent the day in a state of nervous anticipation, knowing that I was finally going to get the chance to talk to Alex alone and get some answers. At the cafe for dinner with Dana again, I found that I couldn’t eat more than a few bites of my food, which was extremely unusual for me, especially since the food at the café was so good. When Dana asked me what was up, I told her the truth.

  “Oh, nothing major, but I’m having a long-awaited talk with Alex tonight. Maybe after, I’ll finally be able to tell you a bit more about some things that have been going on, although I’m not really even sure yet. All I know is that this talk is so long overdue, and if, for some reason, Alex can't make it, like if there’s a problem with the Darkwings or something, I swear to God I’m going to put my fist through a wall.”

  I was really worried about a Darkwings problem delaying Alex or preventing him from coming over altogether; however, even more than that, I was afraid of Mason delaying him or preventing him from coming over.

  Fortunately, it turned out that all my worry was for nothing.

  Alex showed up at my apartment exactly at eight o’ clock, dressed in jeans and a dark t-shirt fitted just well enough to reveal the hard contours of his muscular chest. After closing the door behind him, he immediately pulled me into his strong arms, kissed me briefly and fiercely, and then pulled away to look at my face. “I just want to tell you something, Kira, first thing.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s that I hate sharing you with Mason. I absolutely hate it. I can’t deny that at first, it was more than a bit thrilling for me to sit back and watch you enjoy pure physical pleasure with another man. But now…well, all I can say is that I just hate it. Mason doesn’t deserve to touch a single inch of your body.”

  Alex soon kissed me again, and I kissed him back with enthusiasm, realizing that I wanted to make love to him and him alone, and right then. As badly as I wanted this, and as much as it seemed like Alex wanted to make love to me too, things might have gone that way if I hadn’t been so anxious to finally get the chance to just simply talk to him alone.

  After a little while, I broke our passionate kiss and began leading him out to the living room by the hand. “We should prioritize business first, or else we may never get to talk. If we decided to make love, I can just see Mason arriving the moment we finish, before we even get the chance to say more than two words to each other.”

  While we sat down on the couch, Alex assured me that Mason would be occupied for a while. “To make sure we have all the time we need to talk, I had Dean report a Darkwing spotting to the south of the city; so, Mason had no choice but to lead a group out there. But the truth of the matter is that Dean never spotted any Da
rkwing spy tonight. He’s really just working for me, doing whatever he can to help. He’s become one of the men I trust the most in recent days, although there are many, many others loyal to me as well. In fact, from what I know right now, there are only a few dozen shifters in the whole city who know what Mason is trying to do and actually support him in it. I’m sure you know what they say, though…all it takes is a few bad apples to spoil the bunch. Or cause a lot of potential problems, in this case.”

  “Okay. Please start at the beginning. What exactly is Mason trying to do, other than kill you?”

  Turned toward me with his side against the back of the couch and one long, muscular leg bent, Alex heaved a long sigh. “He’s trying to join forces with the Darkwings, thinking that they’ll help him in his attempt to kill me. I’ve known this for a while, although I’m still not quite over the shock. I think that Mason underestimated the level of loyalty most of our people have for me, and he probably didn’t think that a few of them, including Dean, would start to tell me bits and pieces of funny little things they were seeing and hearing around the city. Eventually, I did some investigating on my own, and my suspicions about what Mason was up to were confirmed. He’d been meeting with Michael Black, the leader of the Darkwings, in secret, promising him shared power if he’d help take me out. Mason assured him that once I was gone, the Darkwings could share in leadership of the nation, which is absurd. However, Mason and Michael Black are both completely delusional about many different things, so the whole thing actually almost makes perfect sense.”

  Considering the wariness toward Mason that I’d developed, I couldn’t say that I was exactly stunned by the things that Alex had just told me, but I still didn’t quite understand one thing.

  “How does Mason think that things are going to work out with your grandfather if he kills you?”

  “Oh, I don’t think that he does think things will ‘work out’ with our grandfather if he kills me. And that’s why I think that our grandfather will be Mason’s next target.”

  “Really? His own grandfather?”

  “Oh, absolutely. Mason is a sociopath, remember? If I were to be killed, his next target would likely be our grandfather, just to hasten the passing of power. I really believe he’s taken this into consideration when formulating his plan. Of course, he has yet to put his plan into action, but I think that’s going to happen very soon. Once he gets Michael Black and the Darkwings officially onboard, I think he plans to have a full-scale fight right here in the city, and that’s when he’ll attempt to kill me. Which just shows exactly how much Mason really cares for our people. He seems to not care if innocent civilians are hurt or even killed in the middle of this attempted-takeover fight he’s planning.”

  Although I knew that Alex probably didn’t want my pity, looking at him across from me on the couch, I couldn’t help but feel more than a bit sorry for him. Or maybe the feeling was just one of profound sadness about what he was going through. Warm, golden-toned lighting in the living room revealed the faintest of dark circles beneath his coal-gray eyes, which was something I’d never seen before. I thought about how he probably hadn’t even been able to get a full night’s sleep anytime recently considering all he had to worry about and think about. Not to mention the fact that I was sure he was still dealing with a lot of anger and hurt over Mason’s betrayal.

  After looking into Alex’s eyes for a moment, I took one of his hands. “For what it’s worth, I’m really sorry that Mason did this to you. I know the two of you have never been close, but I know that you probably trusted him at some point in your lives, and then he went and shattered that trust. It’s really just terrible what he’s done, and is still planning to do, to his own brother.”

  Alex just shrugged, giving me the faintest hint of a smile. “I won’t lie. A small part of me will always be a little wounded by Mason’s actions. But at this point, I guess I’ve really gotten over the majority of the hurt and shock that I felt when I discovered his plan. Now, I just want him dead. He’s too dangerous a shifter to let live, and frankly, he doesn’t deserve to live, considering that I know for a fact that he’d snuff out your life without even thinking about it if he were to find out that you know exactly what he’s planning.”

  With a shudder, I recalled just how close I’d come to telling Mason that the night he’d brought us all sandwiches in my bedroom.

  Before we could talk any further, Alex’s phone began going off, and he yanked it out of his pocket, apologizing.

  “Just one second. This could be Dean, wanting to keep me posted about Mason’s whereabouts.” Alex answered the call, had a brief conversation, only saying a few words, one of them being goddammit, and then hung up. “That was Dean, reporting that Mason is still occupied hunting around for a Darkwing that was never really even spotted, having to play the part of a leader that is actually trying to keep them out instead of working with them. However, we now have a real Darkwings problem. Three of them were seen lurking around the home of one of our council members in wolf form, right inside city limits, but unfortunately, they were able to escape. Another of them was found inside a warehouse west of downtown and was captured. I’ll want to interrogate him without Mason knowing, and this is going to take some real work. So, I need to get going right away, but I’ll be back to visit you alone as soon as I’m able to.” After rising from the couch, Alex took my face in his hands and gave me a hasty kiss. “Try to get some sleep if you can. Something tells me that in the coming days, we’re both going to need all our strength.”

  He was flying out of my living room before I could say a word.

  THE FINAL CHAPTER

  Getting some sleep, as Alex had suggested, proved nearly impossible for me that night. Between fits of anxiety, I just tossed and turned, trying to digest everything he had told me.

  By morning, all my fretting was manifesting itself in tears, and I took a shower, sniffling all the while. It was only a while afterward, when I’d dressed in jeans and a cozy, oversized sweatshirt, that I began to feel more tired than wired, so I got back into bed and slept until noon.

  After what Alex had told me, I expected some calamitous fight to break out in the city at any second. However, strangely, the next week or so passed completely uneventfully. Mason came to visit me alone once, just to talk, he said, but he was called away by Alex within a few minutes of arriving at my apartment. Two nights later, pretty much the exact same thing happened, only with Alex showing up at my place alone, only to be called away by Mason, who claimed there was some sort of an emergency with a captured Darkwing spy getting free.

  The following day, Alex sent me a long text. I think Mason knows that I know something, and I don't think it'll be long before he and Michael Black attempt some sort of an attack. It’s occurred to me that Mason could even attempt to attack me the next time the three of us are in the bedroom together, but I don't think he will. I think he'll want to make my death look somehow like it was caused by the Darkwings and them alone, if possible, but I won't let him do this. I WILL defeat him and Michael Black somehow, so that you and I can be happy together. Please continue to trust me, and have faith. Also, please delete this text right away.

  Deleting his text was easy, of course; however, continuing to have faith was a little harder. I did believe in him, though, and I did trust him. Also, no matter how much longer things continued on the way they were, I was determined not to lose hope that he would eventually kill Mason and Michael Black.

  The day after Alex sent me the long text, he and Mason joined me at my apartment for a bedroom session. It took every ounce of my strength to act perfectly normal around them both and not show any sign of disgust toward Mason, but somehow, I managed to do it.

  Over the course of that week, Dana asked me multiple times what Alex and I had discussed the night we’d had our long discussion, but I still felt like it just wasn’t safe to tell her. If she slipped up just once, just for a second, and told someone else, even completely on accident, and if tha
t someone happened to be one of the few shifters in town loyal to Mason, I knew that could put her in some very serious danger. Not to mention that I’d also likely be in very serious danger, then, myself. I had no doubt that Mason would likely try to have us both killed immediately. For another thing, Dean obviously hadn’t clued Dana in yet as to what was going on, and I figured that he must have had a good reason for this, maybe the same one as mine. So, I just kept putting Dana off, and eventually she stopped asking, although at times, she seemed a bit miffed. I figured this was a pretty small price to pay when it came to keeping her safe.

  A few more days passed. I had another bedroom visit from Alex and Mason together. Showing signs of possible mental strain, Mason had become far less jokey and decidedly more serious, and this night was no exception. After he’d brought us both to a climax, he just sat on the floor by the bed, seemingly off in his own little world. Meanwhile, Alex made love to me from behind, making me moan loudly with each one of his slow, powerful thrusts. I wondered if Mason was having second thoughts about his plan to kill Alex, maybe even having an actual attack of conscience, if he even had one. But then again, it seemed more likely that his and Michael Black’s planned takeover was becoming imminent, and he was just preoccupied with the details of it.

  Two days before Halloween, Dana called me unusually early, being that she tended to sleep in. I asked her what was up, and she hesitated before saying just a single word, drawing out the vowel almost as long as possible.

  “So….”

  “‘So’ what?”

  Again, she hesitated. “So, maybe we should meet up in person to talk. How about some breakfast at the café?”

  For some reason, I suddenly just knew that Dana knew everything. However, it wasn’t just what she'd said about wanting to meet up in person; it was something about the tone of her voice too. Dreading our visit, yet looking forward to it at the same time, I told her that I’d meet her down in the lobby of the building in three.